LMAO!!! Yes Sir!!! and it went"Please allow me to intoduce myself...I'm a Man of weath and taste... Been aroud for many of year, laid many of souls to waste..Pleased to meet you! Can you guess my name?" Just kidding... I'm Shintoist LOL

I was wondering if you were using the expression as it's generally used. To the Irish, it means something quite specific.

My ancestors hail from County Cork in southern Ireland. If you saw my six sisters and one brother, you'd see we were "no doubter" Irish. As kids, we all had freckles. Four of the eight had intensely red hair. All eight are blue-eyed.

In that same south Ireland area, you'll occasionally see folk who have a look almost as striking as my red-headed sisters. They have jet black hair, pale skin (unless tanned), and eyes just as intensely light (blue and sometimes green) as mine. The origin of this rather unusual strain of Irish is of some debate. Some thought they are distant ancestors to Spaniards who landed after the great English Channel Battle with Great Britain. The article I linked you to talks about genetic studies that suggest they could be just part of the genetic mix that we now know as the Irish.

Bill Glasheen wrote:Where were you, Valkenar? Little lady got you tied down at home or something??

Littlest lady maybe. Now I've got a second one (boy, june 21st). Not-quite Irish twins . I went to respond to a few threads here and there, but ended up forgetting my password and didn't bother to reset it until now. The forums have been fairly quite on the political/philosophical/sociological front, which is what most of my comments have been about. The whole karate thing, I just enjoy reading about (and doing, though I've been out of a dojo for a troubling length of time) but never felt like I had a lot to contribute on.

Valkenar wrote:Apparently you don't attend that church very often.

No, not really. When I said that they aren't atheists, I should've said that by and large they aren't atheists. At least in the Belmont and Templeton branches. In Templeton, they actually read from the bible and stuff, it's crazy! In Belmont the sermons seem to consist of humanistic spiritualism. But you're right, I don't attend much, and when I do it's basically to listen to my mother sing - I don't shmooze with the congregation.

Unitarian Universalism is a freestyle investigation of the great faiths of our world. The open-minded approach to it all allows an individual to walk into the church and preserve that which (s)he believes while also enriching their understanding of God (or a lack thereof), spirituality, and ethics.

At the very least, the Bible is one of the great works of literature in the modern world. I'm not one who believes it's divinely inspired, but I'm not going to get into debating all that with a Christian. It is what it is. Christianity has a belief in a divinely inspired dogma which is based on faith. Science and faith are two very different entities. So whatever... I can keep it all sorted in my brain. Others not so much.

You SHOULD listen to your mother sing. Try singing some yourself. At some point in teaching martial arts to a student, I can determine who is a musician/singer and who isn't. And if you've never gone the music route, there are certain things about timing that I cannot teach you. It's like teaching a blind person how to see. You just need to do that homework before walking into my school and discussing how to interface with the timing of an opponent.

Furthermore... singing brings great joy and it opens up certain parts of the brain. I'm convinced I aced engineering graphics - practically sleepwalking - because of my music training. Others couldn't pass the class.

I have done some singing. I have quite a tin ear, but my high school chorus was kind enough to let me in anyway and I learned a lot. My mother got a master's from Berkeley School of Music and my stepfather was a piano tuner, so music was very much a part of my experience growing up. As a kid I briefly took piano lessons, and in the past few years I've learned a couple very simple songs on guitar/bass. Overall, I'd say my extensive dance training has been much more obviously applicable to karate. I would assume that the timing stuff you get from music would apply to dance as well (maybe even better?) but who knows.

Valkenar wrote:I would assume that the timing stuff you get from music would apply to dance as well (maybe even better?) but who knows.

In my opinion very much so.

I've done my share of dancing. Once I had mastered "prep step" dancing, aikido was a piece of cake. For me it was just my frat house and at friends' parties.

My older sister - briefly a very good martial artist - lived in Virginia Beach during the disco era. Her "entourage" could walk into any club for free because they'd walk onto the dance floor and dazzle. Crowds followed them just to watch.

It's partly in the genes with us. My great aunt was a Rockette. I attribute my legginess and leg ability somewhat to those shared genes. My younger son in fact can kick his leg up and wrap it around the back of his head - while standing - just for grins. (I am so jealous!!!) Now I need to get him to spend more time with his music, and then get into martial arts. We shall see...